Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Chocolate showpiece intervention part 2

In my quest to end all things superfluous in the chocolate showpiece arena, I came up with another proposal in simplicity. This is a 12 inch sphere of solid dark chocolate, with a lip carved out of one side, sitting on a chocolate pedestal. The sphere was then sprayed with a light gray velvet spray, and then I scratched through the surface with a clay modeling tool to expose the chocolate under it.

Once I was finished with the piece, which I liked, by the way, I though about its purpose. What is the purpose of any chocolate showpiece? It is so ephemeral, since it won't last forever, and you really can't eat it. Technically you can, but it would take a mighty jaw to take a chunk off of that. So it occurred to me, that part of the beauty of the showpiece is that it is ephemeral and temporary.

But this also means that it is a huge waste of time and money, at least in my shop. Can you break the piece down and melt it to re-use? You could, but by this point it has been exposed for a while, and with much debris in the air falling on it, it wouldn't be 100% sanitary. So, what purpose did it serve again?